About Me (A Preface)

   When I was a Kindergartner, I was labeled "fidgety". This was because the other kids were learning phonics and I could read the Laura Ingalls Wilder picture books by myself. My mom, a social worker, set up meetings with the Gifted coordinator in my school, and by the next school year, I was in the next level reading class. Thus began my life as a "gifted kid".
   Don't get me wrong. Being "gifted" made me who I am today, and I love who I am. But, as beginning college taught me, it hasn't been as great as it necessarily sounds. When I got to college, I had to learn how to study, re-learn how to make friends (more on that later), and face a fear of judgment and failing that I previously did not even I know I had/have. And this is an ongoing thing. I'm still working on all of it, though it has gotten considerably easier.
   So, about me. I love to read, play the trombone, sing, science (yes, it is a verb. Okay not really, but I like it.), and obsess. And obsess might sound like a strange hobby, but of anything that has ever defined me as a "gifted kid", it is definitely my obsessions.
The earliest I remember/ have been told about was the solar system. I had a laminated map of the planets, as well as a space encyclopedia, which I loved to look at and learn about.  My favorite section, now that I think about it, was about life on other planets. Perhaps that's why my current obsession is the British show Doctor Who. Hmmm. Never really thought about it. 
   Anyways, apparently when I was about five, my mom and I went to the observatory in my hometown, and I asked some really advanced question that not even the docent could answer. Too bad I don't remember what it was. Perhaps that could have taken care of some of my tuition.
   Additional obsessions in semi-chronological order have been: lighthouses, presidents, Harry Potter, chess, the Olympics, Pushing Daisies, Broadway/theatre (semi-current), Doctor Who (current). I am a news junkie, and a fact checker, and I know tons of random crap that doesn't really do anything except make me a good contender for Jeopardy!. 
   Well, here I go. The life of a former gifted kid, now working through an undergraduate education at a huge university. Life as I knew it, as a kid who knew everything to an adult who knows nothing.

In the words of the Eleventh Doctor...
GERONIMO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!